1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in feeding produce items to centrifugal slicers so as to increase production and produce better sliced products.
2. Prior Art
Centrifugal slicers for slicing whole produce are well known in the art. Urschel Laboratories Inc. of Valparaiso, Ind. produces a number of commercially available slicers. One of the main uses of the Urschel centrifugal slicer is to slice potatoes as the first step in producing potato chips. However, they are capable of slicing a wide variety of other produce items such as raw apples, beets, mushrooms and the like.
In the operation of Urschel centrifugal slicers the produce items are placed onto a rotating impeller and are forced against the inner surface of a slicing head assembly by centrifugal force and vanes on the impeller. The slicing head assembly may include as many as eight separate slicing knives. As produce passes each knife in a smooth uninterrupted manner, a slice is produced and the slice passes outwardly of the slicing head. With the Urschel slicer a large number of slices can be produced within a short period of time. The standard Urschel Model CC slicer is not practical for slicing apples because of bruising, chipping and undue bouncing preventing a good slice from being obtained.
It is also known in the art to slice whole apples as an initial step in producing apple chips. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,296 assigned to the assignee of this invention. In the apple chip product it is highly desirable that the peel of the apple stay on the slices and that the slices be intact, i.e., without holes and without breakage to produce a more satisfactory product both from the standpoint of aesthetics and organoleptic properties.
When feeding apples to an Urschel slicer utilizing the teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,296 the apples tend to initially bounce around as they are rotated against the slicing head and the blades tend to chip the skin or peel and a percentage of the slices produced tend not to be whole or complete slices. This leads to producing of slices which are not intact and do not have all of the peel on them. Moreover, with the single feed input disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,296 the production rate tends to be slow, thus requiring additional slicers. In other words, while the device of U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,296 is satisfactory for its purpose, it has certain disadvantages in slicing apples including a slow production rate, a tendency to not leave the peel intact on the slices, a low centrifugal force and a tendency to allow the product to bounce which chips the peel and contributes to less than whole slices. There is a need in the art to correct these deficiencies.